Analysis of Barrowboy
Quietly the street vendor shuffles,
his barrow heavy against his body,
the early morning mists shroud
the narrow, cobblestone streets.
Thin shafts of light from curtained windows
break the still greyness, and dark shapes scurry in
and out of focus, like lost spirits, searching for respite.
The market place is now close by,
the hubbub of a hundred merchants
fills his ears, as those familiar sounds,
smells and sights invade his awaking senses.
Hurriedly now he takes up his dilapidating
stall, a jigsaw of ancient and renewed,
fabricated over many years; to exhibit
his meagre wares; for squire and vagabond,
barter and haggle, one after the other.
Many the long hour he spents, day following day,
in this his crowded solitude, try as he may
to make a penny or two, to pay the landlord
what the landlord thinks the debt is due.
Scheme | ABCDEFGHIJKLMGNOPPQR |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Etheree (25%) Tetractys (20%) |
Metre | 100011010 1101001110 0101011 010101 11111110 1011011100 01110111010110 01011111 010101010 111110101 101011110 100111111 101110001 100101011010 111110100 10010110010 1001101111001 01110101111 11010111101 10110111 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 810 |
Words | 143 |
Sentences | 5 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 20 |
Lines Amount | 20 |
Letters per line (avg) | 33 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 663 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 143 |
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Submitted on May 01, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 42 sec read
- 2 Views
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"Barrowboy" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 10 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/66489/barrowboy>.
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